Flutterbox

New Flutter In The Zeitgeist!

2011-12-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

Every once in a while we search the word "flutterbox." Tonight's search led to this description of a homemade instrument by the Scottish experimental musician and composer Daniel Padden in a collaboration with the instrument maker Sarah Kenchington. Their record is called The Bellow Switch, and it's on the Shadazz label.

Specifically,

"The Flutterbox is a large, kalimba-like musical box with a spinning drum that creates rhythmic loops – simple, repetitive figures that form the backbone to the music collected here."

Picture please! We'd like to see and hear it. To begin the hunt, here's Daniel's myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/danielpadden.

Looking for "effective amazement texts?" Call for Cardinal Furio!

2011-11-26T21:25:00.002-05:00

I, Janine, have not heard a note of this music, but I can't wait to and it won't be long now, since he's headed back to town. In recent days and weeks, Neill has been across the pond writing lyrics to melodies from the great Mozart, melodist supreme, all for a Danish "theatrical concert" now playing in Copenhagen. Talk about brave.

And not just brave, but really, REALLY good. Did Samuel Beckett ever want to write anything other than "effective amazement texts," as Neill's work is characterized in this review? I don't think so.

"For an authentic Danglish experience," Neill texts (the hand-held kind),

read all about it here!

It had to be done

2011-07-08T17:18:00.000-04:00

The Mixpod player we had embedded on this site ceased to work some time ago. You may have noticed. We assumed our limited tech-savviness was to blame, but recently we discovered that OpenDrive has ceased to provide their streaming service to those who only signed up for the free account. The hunt is on for a new player.

To tide you over, this shot of the blanket of Spanish bluebells in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden this spring........

A request for Strange Fruit

2010-09-29T23:37:00.005-04:00

Out of all the delights and surprises that occurred things in the three performances we gave last weekend, our favorite was a request for Strange Fruit at The Delancey. We do believe that Flutterbox offers the second best reading of that bedeviled songpoem and wish that we had a recording of it to post here. But if you come to a gig, you have but to ask.

And because we did the Swinging Carnaby Street benefit for Howl! Help (which we hear was the best-attended event in the festival and raised beaucoup dollars), we now have a watchful, tender version of The Kinks' Waterloo Sunset to add to our sets. It's all about about a shut-in, wethinks.

Found this Waterloo Sunset on fotolog. A view a shut-in could love.

Janine Loves A Uniform

2010-08-28T01:01:00.003-04:00

Recently, Janine was asked to participate in The Uniform Project, the completely satisfying result of an artist's challenge to herself to make a dress so perfect that it could be worn every day for a year, with the proceeds from its sale going to support alternative education in, first, India, currently, the Lower Ninth Ward. Ladies and men, it turns out it really is all about accessories, because the designer, Sheena Matheiken, photographed herself in the dress every day for a year looking genuinely incredible. Millions of hits to the website and a barrage of press helped her raise over $100,000 in the opening run.

Now the dress design has been tweaked and Sheena wanted to photograph other-looking women to dress up the dress with things from their own closets, to prove its versatility. Janine was only too happy to rise to the occasion, and though it was over 100 degrees in the studio, wore layered skirts and button down shirts, even a cumberbund and a hat, for the cause. The dress is for sale for $150; you could buy the pattern and make it, or have it made for, yourself.

Janine's getting one. Perhaps she'll wear it at every gig forevermore.

Waiting On A Friend

2010-08-05T00:46:00.005-04:00

I took this picture of my friend Nick Cave – a huge Fbox fan – on Neill's stoop, for which he owes me FOREVER. Neill was in Denmark. He would want me to point out that 338 backwards spells "BEE."

Somehow, in all these years, I never mentioned to Neill that I appear in the Rolling Stones' video for "Waiting On A Friend." Can you spot me? I was a brunette then.

Ever seen this happen?

2010-05-16T22:30:00.003-04:00

Last Sat night, Fbox was supposed to open for Harriet Tubman at the Tribeca Y. And because winged trickster Mercury was still in retrograde last week, everybody was confused about the time for the show. We all thought Fbox went on at 8 and HT at 9. Turned out that doors were at 8, and the bands at 9 and 10. Tubman couldn't play at 10 because their bass player, Melvin Gibbs, had to be in a cab at 10:15 to get to the airport to fly to Korea for a tour with Arto Lindsay. So it was quickly decided that Tubman would open for Flutterbox.

Now we ask you, have you ever seen the opening act follow the headliner AND get an encore? We haven't found anybody yet, but it happened on May 8 at the Tribeca Y.

And much love and thanks to Emily Rubin and her Loads Of Prose series for a fantastic gig at the Avenue A Laundromat in the East Village. Great fun. Hope you were there.

As If That's A Good Thing

2010-05-05T01:47:00.005-04:00

Janine, wearing her collagist's hat, found this illustration for Magnavox televisions in a dated House Beautiful. It boasts that the company's newest black & white model has "no flutter"– AS IF THAT'S A GOOD THING.

Come out to the Ave A Laundromat in the East Village tonight and get your flutter on.

As writ in The Wire

2010-03-03T20:52:00.008-05:00

Are you familiar with The Wire, the rarefied British music magazine for adventurers in modern music? We have to admit we were not. Then Hal Willner called Janine to ask if Flutterbox "wanted a bit of an ego boost." Certainly. He proceeded to explain, by way of introduction, that the magazine is pretty much his bible, but warned that to get into it is a "deeply humbling experience" since they write exclusively about music "we know nothing about."

Turns out that on page 8o of the March issue, there's an informed and entirely enthusiastic review of the Tuli Kupferberg benefit show at St. Ann's Warehouse in January. In the last paragraph of Byron Coley's review, Hal continued, it says,

"The vocal/bass duo Flutterbox did a JAWDROPPINGLY GORGEOUS rendition of Morning Morning."

"Could you repeat that?" Janine said, same as Neill said when he heard (adding, "Am I dreaming this?").

Days later, while Janine was out in Vancouver for the Willner Olympics, Hal showed her the actual print issue (just procured this week in New York at Other Music and not yet online). She told a few of the other players about The Wire mention, including the Glaswegian amazer, Alasdair Roberts, who is on the cover. The routine response was little short of astonishment – not that anyone would say our music is jaw-droppingly gorgeous, because it is, but because The Wire said so. Apparently, The Wire doesn't exactly favor a gushing tone. This rapturous squib is a very big deal. Thank you, People of The Wire! We will never forget that the British don't hyphenate "jaw-dropping."

Neill always says, when asked why we play so quietly (so much of the time), "I like to be able to hear the sound of their jaws dropping." Byron Coley of The Wire has ears good enough to hear it too. Ed Sanders said to Janine that night, "We always knew that was our `beautiful' song, but I never heard it really be beautiful before!"

Richard Gehr, over at The Village Voice, went with "luminous."

Philip Glass, Harry Smith: From the Tuli Kupferberg Benefit Concert

2010-02-10T22:40:00.003-05:00

I shot this from backstage at the Tuli Kupferberg benefit at St. Ann's Warehouse. The pianist is Philip Glass and the films are by Harry Smith. Sumptuous.

Impeach the Supreme Court 5

2010-02-07T12:58:00.005-05:00

We don't think only about music. Some days, we hardly think about music at all, so enraged are we by the cruel machinations of American government. Like you, we'd been focused on the chicanery in the US Congress. But now the Supreme Court has our attention again. Corporations are NOT representative of We The People and must not be extended further rights of personhood.

It's important to let people know they're not alone in their fury. Start with a free bumper sticker to advertise your discontent!

What makes a hit song? Blegvad draws you a picture

2010-02-07T00:02:00.002-05:00

Nick Hill's new online music project, Radio Free Songs, is up and running. Alphabetically, Peter Blegvad is the first up and that is as Nature intended. Hail Peter! Thanks for the diagram. We'll use it.

Neill Furio: New old photographs

2010-01-28T23:52:00.003-05:00

These were taken across the sea, in Denmark, where Neill has spent much of the past several years, writing, producing, teaching "Songwriting and Song-wronging"), recording and performing. These photos never seem to turn up on a google image search, but we like them and thought we'd put them on our site too. Dig that pinkie action.

Fbox "luminous" at Tuli Kupferberg benefit!

2010-01-27T01:23:00.003-05:00

Thanks to Rich Miller for this photograph. It was a great night, we were proud to participate and we played well, really well. Scroll over the headline to read about it in the Village Voice "Sounds of the City" online edition – who gets the first mention? Might run in the print edition tomorrow. We certainly hope so.

We made some very cool fans too: David Amram, who spoke with Neill composer-to-composer, a most gratifying experience given that Mr. Amram is among the purest of music-makers; Lenny Kaye, who wants to be in our Fan Club (he is most welcome to start one) and Kim Gordon, no less. One of these days we'll post some music online. Anybody know how to embed a player on blogspot? We just can't do the myspace thing. Myspace is owned by FOX. Might move over to ning.com.

Open to suggestion!

Coming right up: NOTHING!

2010-01-20T11:50:00.003-05:00

Count F-box among the all-star acts coming together for Tuli Kupferberg, that old Fug, at St. Ann's Warehouse this Friday night. Come out! Scroll the headline for the link...

Flutter in the Zeitgeist III

2010-01-04T14:18:00.005-05:00

I just bought a wonderful little watercolor on rice paper called Messenger by the Brooklyn artist Suyeon Na, at an auction to support the A.I.R. Gallery in Dumbo. So I went to look at her website, when what to my wondering eyes did appear.... Now that's a flutterbox.

I sold a piece at the auction too. Both our works went for the minimum bid, WPA prices, frankly. Now is a good time to buy art! Have you looked at jazzpaperscissors on blogspot.com, lately? There's a reality-based repricing underway – to make room for the new!

All best wishes for a much-improved decade!

A Little Sooner Every Year

2009-12-27T15:56:00.002-05:00

Celebrate New Year's Eve Eve EVE with Flutterbox, why don't you? We have two hours to fill to bursting at Barbes, starting 7pm tomorrow night, Monday December 28th. We'd love to see you again before the year's out.

Time is of the Essence!

2009-12-07T13:48:00.001-05:00

Please sign the petition at http://tcktcktck.org today.

Sir Paul McCartney, Neill Cardinal Furio in Copenhagen!

2009-12-03T23:43:00.007-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Two of the world's most inventive electric bassists will be in Copenhagen for the United Nations Climate Change Conference: Sir Paul McCartney and Neill Cardinal Furio. Sir Paul will be giving a speech in favor of "Meat-Free Mondays" making the point that individuals are every bit as responsible as their governments for making efforts to alleviate global warming.

Mr. Furio's no doubt charmingly insurrectionist plans were unavailable at press time – making it impossible to say whether he might cross paths with Sir Paul. Don't think you have to stay tuned to GDAE to find out!

While you're waiting, sign the Hopenhagen petition!

Second gig this week!

2009-09-26T22:09:00.002-04:00

Sometimes things just work out. We'll be back at Jalopy this Monday night, Sept 28th, opening for Tony Scherr again, as Nature intends. Long may we run.

9pm! $5! F train to Carroll St!

Flutter in the Arcade

2009-09-17T01:32:00.002-04:00

You never know what a search of the word "flutterbox" is going to turn up. At the forum over at arcadecontrol.com, we read the following sentence: "I've got a swp crystal maze machine, there is two types of this machine. I've got the better one with the flutter box."

We know how hunty3000 feels.

Flutter in the Equinox

2009-08-31T15:03:00.003-04:00

We begin again, newly balanced. Events have conspired to keep the Flutterboxers on either side of the pond this summer, but summer is drawing down (if only now feeling like summer) and the Return of Flutterbox is nigh. We'll be at Barbes for two shining hours on Monday September 21 from 7-9pm. New songs! Old favorites! My calendar says Sept 21 is also the International Day of Peace. We'll have something to sing about that too.

Come out! Come out!

Flutter in the Zeitgeist II

2009-07-18T01:10:00.004-04:00

This just over the trainsom, remarks upon the "flutterbox" (pictured) built by an unknown musician as part of the entertainment at a performance event we're sorry to have missed involving music and textile artists.

"I got very interested in the ’flutterbox’ instrument one of the musicians had made.... The flutterbox was an insane-looking construction, made out of a drum, bike wheel, gurney castor-wheels, wingnuts. The sounds it made I’d never heard before and because it wasn’t a known instrument like a guitar I had no received idea of how it should be played so that alone was fascinating. And the musician was bent over it like it was a loom or something.

It may be that all flutterboxes, at one time or another, bring their players to their knees. This one looks a little like a hamster pram.

Ready ... Steady ... ZOOM ...

2009-07-07T15:31:00.000-04:00

Proud possessors of a new H4n ZOOM 4-track (simultaneously!) recorder, Flutterbox will be making some quality living room recordings in the weeks and months ahead, songs which will then be made available, in a delightful running brook of hit singles, on iTunes. More on this master plan as things develop. Meanwhile, watch this space!

One thing we know for sure right now. We'll be at Barbes on Monday, September 21 for two hours, from 7-9pm. Says here on the calendar that Sept 21 is the International Day of Peace. We have more than one song to sing about that.

Flutter in the Ether: Podcast!

2009-06-15T17:14:00.000-04:00

Click to hear Flutterbox open and close the May 6th edition of THE KGB RADIO HOUR with your hosts, and Janine's, now also Neill's, friends, Mark Jacobson and Larry "Ratso" Sloman.

This entertaining pair beam smart, smarm free podcasts out of the KBG Bar on E. 4th Street roughly, literally, every month. Mark came to fame in Janine's life as the coach of her son's basketball team, a job he performed with 110% rumpled style and authority, but his calling is as a writer (currently, at New York magazine) interviewing icons, gangsters and saints of all stripes. He's been at this for years and remembers details.

Ratso was maybe the first editor of High Times, the dream job of countless millions. Larry's working with Tyson on the fighter's autobiography now. You should read his book on Houdini. The magician was a spy, you know.

The sound equipment on hand at the KBG falls somewhere between lo-fi and no-fi, but so what? Neill figured out a way for us to be heard despite the odds and the teeming rain 3 feet from the microphone. At the top, you'll hear the hosts wondering where "that sound" is coming from. Fans will recognize that sound ("In my head?" Ratso wonders) as a loop Neill is building, in this case for "The Robin Sings." At show's end we play "Safety Last"; the crowd, having heard "Robin" was authentically shocked at the tempo. Fun to see the surprise on their faces: That's radio, folks!

Some of Ratso's songwriter friends from Brooklyn are on the show, as are Mike Daly of The Daily News and Tom Robbins of The Village Voice. There are also phone-ins with Cong. Anthony Weiner (who had not yet dropped out of the Mayoral race) and the best Mike Bloomberg impersonator anyone could imagine. Jaw dropping. Are you as sickened by the Bloomberg "campaign" as we are?

Enjoy the show.

Flutter In The Zeitgeist

2009-05-11T22:04:00.001-04:00

Imitation is the sincerest form of fluttery!

Janine in The New Yorker

2009-04-24T10:56:00.000-04:00

We have a fan at The New Yorker! Nice mention for Janine's solo show coming up. Click on the headline for the link. Scroll down to just beneath Mr. Reed's picture, and there Janine is, mentioned in the same breath as Andy Statman. Janine tried very hard to get Mr. S. to play at St. Ann's years ago, but his religion just didn't allow it. In any case, he is a genius of two instruments and if you can't catch Janine, catch Andy!

Coming Soon to Le Poisson Rouge! Sat April 25

2009-04-07T15:22:00.000-04:00

Boho Supremo John Kruth, sweet, string-playing veteran of many a Hal Willner project and prodigious music biographer in his own right (Sun Ra, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Townes Van Zandt) was in truth the man who gave Flutterbox its start, with his invitation to me to sing a John Lennon song at the Bowery Poetry Club on the 25th anniversary of his apotheosis. I asked Neill to join me, he suggested I try on his arrangement of "In My Life," and in the length of time it took to sing and play the song a band was born. Johnny the K been an F-box enthusiast from, literally, day one and he's asked us both to open for and participate in his multi-artist shindig marking 40 years since the release of "Nashville Skyline" (a number that refuses to seem real to me) at Le Poisson Rouge, the swank new club in the old Village Gate on Bleecker Street.

Flutterbox opens at 7 with a 40 minute set. Then Neill will have his way with "Peggy Day," no doubt correcting the cocaine-addled tempo of yore. Me, "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight" or "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" with Sam Parton of Be Good Tanyas fame. All will be revealed in the fullness of rehearsal time. We haven't played Manhattan since Joe's Pub in November and we hope to see you out there.

More Juliet Rose!

2009-04-05T01:28:00.001-04:00

Hats off to beautiful 10-year-old JULIET ROSE SCHLEFER of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, who sang "More And Less" with me at Barbes on April Fool's Night. The girl's a one-take natural and she can also snag a dragonfly out of the air with the greatest of ease. She'll be singing Britten's "Requiem" with the New York Philharmonic this spring. Someday we'll say we knew her when.

New Pix & Gigs

2009-03-14T14:09:00.000-04:00

Here are some new photos, taken by our man in Pittsfield, Alan P. (for Pittsfield?) Hayes, at Joe's Pub back in November. Thanks Alan! I don't know what I was thinking with that Rebecca of Sunnybjork Farm outfit, nor, for that matter, Neill with that pajama shirt. But we played great, and the sound in the room and onstage was great, and Robin Holcomb was great, as were Tony Scherr and Doug Wieselman, who accompanied her.

Wheezy, as I call him, played such a beautiful clarinet solo on Whoops Wrong Daisy, I do believe I saw tiny tears of joy forming in Neill's eyes.

Anyway, to steal a line from the writer Terry O'Reilly, whom I interviewed the other week for the new Mabou Mines website (for which I am the writer), Flutterbox has gigs "lined up like hurricanes off the Florida coast," including a major Manhattan show, an opening set before John Kruth's multi-artist shindig marking the 40th anniversary of "Nashville Skyline" (to which we'll also contribute) at Le Poisson Rouge, or, as the musicians have taken to calling it, the Poison Fish, on April 25 and a select few songs about Death and Taxes as part of Emily Rubin's roving song and story series, "Dirty Laundry: The City Cycle," at the Ave A Laundromat on April 15th.

It all starts April Fool's Night at Barbes. Always hoping to see you....

Shot at Joe's Pub

2008-12-17T02:19:00.000-05:00

Check out this dressing room door sign. Nice. Neill took this picture, which is why it is in focus. I may have taken the other, which is not; we don't remember. Did you take it?

Rust In Post

2008-12-17T01:45:00.001-05:00

Neill's Mom believes there should be a Pulitzer Prize for headline writers, such is her admiration for their craft. You can bet she was pretty happy to see the New York Post steal one from her young'un. Because those guys are GOOD.

Flutterbox in The New Yorker

2008-11-17T22:52:00.000-05:00

Good things continue to happen. Click on the headline above for a link to the "Goings On About Town" section. Scroll down to the Joe's Pub listing and feast your eyes.

Feast both your eyes and both of your ears at Joe's on Friday.

Hope to see you in there at 7.

A Few New Pictures

2008-11-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

These were taken at MASS MoCA in August by one Mr. Alan P. Hayes of Pittsfield, Mass., who shoots without looking. It's not all luck though. You may check him out here: http://www.ahayesphoto.com/

On the horizon: Joe's Pub!

2008-10-22T00:41:00.000-04:00

We haven't played a Manhattan gig for a while, but things change! Flutterbox will share a double bill with ROBIN HOLCOMB at JOE'S PUB on Friday November 21 at 7 o'clock. Robin was scrolling through Joe's calendar to see what was on during her upcoming trip to New York (from Seattle) when she found a gaping hole in their schedule. A few days later, we had filled the spot; Robin will follow us at 8 o'clock accompanied by Doug Wieselman and Tony Scherr.

We've wanted to share a bill since bills were first shared. Robin's song, "When I Stop Crying," has been an F-box secret weapon from show one. In January of this year, we did an evening of her songs at The Stone at Hal Willner's urging.

Exactly sixteen stars had to align for this little dream to come true, so come out, come out, wherever you are!

www.joespub.com

Backstory from the North Adams Transcript

2008-10-22T00:19:00.000-04:00

FLUTTERBOX BRINGS ITS SMOKY FUSION TO MASS MOCA
By John E. Mitchell
North Adams Transcript (MA)
Fri Aug 29 2008

Flutterbox is the musical partnership between vocalist Janine Nichols and bassist Neill Cardinal Furio. Together they create music whose sound is one part smoky pool hall and one part sonic mysticism.

Furio fashions this around Nichols’ vocals, which at times resemble Debbie Harry’s, if the former Blondie frontperson specialized in minimalist jazz electronica. Furio creates a variety of musical textures with his bass, thanks to his love of outdated technology – he loves oddball vintage pedals that never quite work right.

“You fix the thing, and it never works properly, and that adds so much to the sound,” he said.

He’s particularly fond of an old Swedish fuzzbox that he owns.

“I call it the Ekberg, because it’s an old Swedish fuzzbox that’s referred to as “The Big Stack,” he said.

Furio’s lyrics tend to be character-driven, sometimes historical – the Wright Brothers, Vincent Van Gogh’s mirror and the murder victim in the Black Dahlia case have all been captured in song. It’s the one area that Furio says he’s grown as a songwriter since starting at age 10, when he wrote a song called, “One, Two, Three, Infinity,” named after the first book he ever bought at a bookmobile.

“I did that first one for a school project because I really fell in love with the solar system, so I just started out writing about the planets and I thought, well, there’s your thing – you go in order from the first planet out to the last, and you just tell their stories and that makes it interesting,” he said.

“Then it was easy to write songs about my cats – “Valentino Meet Valentina” – that was another early song. We had more cats that were named after spices – Nutmeg, Ginger, Cinnamon, Cloves, things like that – so that became an early song. It was a little metaphor about how sweet they were.”

Furio picked up the guitar at that age – two broken strings meant he tuned a four-string to a nice chord and worked with that. Sometime later, a baseball injury had Furio’s dad renting him an upright bass to keep him from moping – it was an instrument he could play in a more comfortable standing-up position.

“It was a nice upbringing in North Carolina at a rural repertory drive-in theater with my mom on Lowry organ to accompany silent films,” he recalled. “You can imagine how few cars were in the lot every night.”

Furio’s musical output became stamped with a charmed quality, often including stories and songs in thematic performances, thus echoing childhood favorites like “Peter and the Wolf” and “Tubby the Tuba.”

He said that when he grew up, he thought that all songs had stories between them, that all stories were punctuated with songs, and his debut composition at age 10 was a “musical punctuation” to his school report on the planets. His solo performances reflected this style.

“There would be a story, and then there would be a song that would relate in an adult way - a kind of Greek chorus comment on what was happening in the story - until the bittersweet conclusion.”

Nichols was a frequent audience member for these shows and one whom Furio loved to have around. “I used to say to him ‘I love your shows – they’re like a math quiz!” Nichols said. “There are so many word games and they work on so many layers, they assume pockets of knowledge on the part of the audience.”

Nichols and Furio originally met at a show Furio did with an old musical partner, and they cultivated a friendship based on mutual interests – silent movies, old architecture, typefaces. Some time later, they collaborated on a song and performance at a going-away party for a friend of Nichols’. Still further on, they took to the stage at a John Lennon tribute concert and opened the show, effectively stealing it with their rendition of “In My Life,” and deciding to work together musically.

Prior to that sequence of events, Nichols had a life of many left turns, none of which involved a future in music. She was an art history major trying to figure out what she wanted to do with her life when she met Howard Shore, then the musical director of “Saturday Night Live” in the 1970s. Doing some stage design work with him secured a position as a producer through the original cast.

After that, she began booking for Arts at St. Ann’s in Brooklyn, NY, making her mark through commissions like Bill Frisell’s Buster Keaton scores and the reunion collaboration between Lou Reed and John Cale, as well as creating multi-performer theme shows with Hal Willner.

Around 2000, Nichols found herself to be a single mother with the chance to reinvent herself. She felt very strongly that she wanted her new life to be one as a singer. Performer Jimmie Dale Gilmore put the bee in her bonnet one day when she substituted for a back-up singer in a soundcheck.

“I made a cassette of me singing along to records,” she said. “That was such a crazy thing to do. I sent the tape to Terry Adams from NRBQ, who immediately said, “If you give me 10 grand, I’ll produce a record of you singing along to records.”

Nichols took a musical vacation to New Orleans to take the stage as a guest vocalist for her friend Peter Holsapple’s band. It was an amazing success, and, more important, a confidence booster, proclaiming that her desire wasn’t off the mark at all.

“It was Leap Day, Feb. 29, 2000, and I felt like I was standing on my spot on the planet, doing what I was supposed to be doing,” Nichols said. “I wasn’t nervous. I didn’t forget any lyrics. I just felt completely happy. The audience was so embracing. Everybody wanted to buy my record and ‘What’s my band?’ ‘I don’t have a record.’ ‘What do you mean, you don’t have a record?’”

She had a tape of that performance – another tape, a completely different tape, this time with a live band – that she sent to Furio and a couple of others. From there on, it snowballed. She became a singer; there was no stopping it. She and Furio were two musical peas in a pod who seemed destined to take the stage together.

“Neill writes these cagey, wonderful songs and I try to make them sound easy to sing, which they’re not,” Nichols said.

Now their collaboration builds on their personal rapport, mixed with Furio’s idiosyncratic, personal lyrical style. One work in progress called “More And Less” brings one of their favorite forms – the list song – into modern political terms that puts their humor at the center of the presentation: “More wish, less whoosh / More speech, less shush" until the inevitable punchline "More trees, less Bush."

One perpetually in-progress list song is “Something Green” – nicknamed “Something Brave” by Nichols in regard to what they would have to be to perform it. It’s a song that lists green things alphabetically, from absinthe to zucchini.

“I always felt that Johnny Cash song “40 Shades of Green” fell a little short, because he told, he didn’t show,” Furio said. “He broke the cardinal rule of songwriting by telling. He said, ‘And I’ll always miss you and those 40 shades of green ...’ So I thought, ‘What would those 40 shades be?’”

Furio thought for a moment – moss, grass, emerald. He kept going.

“The point where I was at about 80, I realized that maybe the best organizing principle of this song was to alphabetize it, because everything is better in alphabetical order,” he said. “The longer I spent with this song, the more green kept coming to me. It’s up to 160, so I’ve fully doubled my original output and, in fact, quadrupled Johnny Cash’s song.”

Interest in songs is a central point to both musicians – there must be more to write songs about than the same old bland stuff. That’s the starting point for Nichols’ voice and Furio’s bass to deliver something unique.

“The song is like the smoke signal, and so it’s got to be worth starting a fire over,” Furio said. Like that song, ‘Black Hole Sun’ by Soundgarden. I love that song.” ‘Black hole sun/Won’t you come/And wash away the rain.’ But the melody could be sung to the words ’I love you/You love me/Come on over for a cup of tea.’ It’s just not the same song anymore. It’s got to be worth starting a fire over to make it puff some smoke.”

“What the gestation period is for a song, for Neill, I really don’t know,” Nichols said. “Some of them seem 100 years in the making, and some of them seem like they were written overnight. I do know that when we sit down to play anything together, it comes amazingly quickly. I don’t think anyone has more songs in their book with as little rehearsal as we’ve had.”

Flutterbox will perform at Mass MoCA tonight at 8 o'clock.

Rave Review of the MASS MoCA Show

2008-10-21T18:51:00.000-04:00

Flutterbox
Mass MoCA, N. Adams, MA
Friday, August 29, 2008

If you're going to make up a word and use it as your band name, you damn well better be able to back it up. Flutterbox have done this, and more. A duo of singer Janine Nichols and bass guitarist Neill C. Furio, the latter originally coined the term as a moniker for the vintage effects box he uses to create parallel and enhanced musical sounds. Adopting it for their own name was an apt choice. The word itself is playful and layered in ways that mirror their unique and inviting songs. The first half of the compound word reflects movement, with bird-like darting, wings in motion. The second is solid and stationary, a defined space with one side enclosing a finite volume, the other standing as the edge of infinity.

This New York City-based pair have been together for only a couple years and their appearance at Mass MoCA in North Adams last Friday marked their area debut. Nichols and Furio were a study in visual contrasts, she looking like a silver-haired Annie Hall, he like a mod-shirted Jeff Beck. What Flutterbox have created straddles genres with the confidence of seasoned travelers. Furio's songs, as sung by Nichols, create a breadth of character enriched by the strength of the two vantage points. It can come as a surprise that the words being sung were not her own, so completely did she inhabit them. The songs were poetic reveries on flight, dreams, love, hope, time, and wonder. Even elements of loss, longing and goodbyes were given a warm glow. Once you hear a song like "Whoops Wrong Daisy" it's hard to recall that you've had decades of life before it came on board.

Without a hint of grandstanding, Nichols gently let her idiosyncratic sense of time and space elevate everything she sang. Meanwhile Furio brought the sensibilities of a guitarist to his bass, using a capo, fuzz and other effects to provide both a rhythmic foundation and melodic flourishes. The sheltered outdoor setting was ideal for the sonics being created on stage.

Early on, crickets in the surrounding night became a part of the musical atmosphere. Later, sirens wailed down the road, their notes in the same key as the song being played and Furio gave them room before returning to the verse at hand. Finally, rain began to fall, bouncing off the paved surfaces and percussing on the fabric coverings overhead.

Fluttterbox's first CD is just out and there's an electricity in hearing something this good near its beginnings. Their between song patter hasn't found a natural ease yet, but more time on the road will bring that into focus as well. Such a sympathetically matched pair is hard to find.

– David Greenberger
(4 Sept 08)

Introducing FLUTTERBOX

2008-04-29T01:45:00.000-04:00

FLUTTERBOX is the musical adventure of Janine Nichols and Neill C. Furio. We began as Split the Lark in January 2006, but then someone else started using the name and refused our challenge to a Lark-Off, which was too bad because it would have been fun ... and we would have won.

Seekers after the silver lining, we elected instead to change our name, especially since a good one was right there in front of us. FLUTTERBOX is a word Neill made up to refer to the 70s FX unit we sometimes run everything through. Like our music, it gives rise to pleasurable notions of sound, place, device, facility, ornithology and more, all of which we encourage.

Janine Nichols, who draws the pictures in the air (as Neill describes the task of all singers), has been called a lot of things, including “arrestingly plaintive” (The Village Voice). Hal Willner has said to her, “There used to be one thing I didn’t like about your singing, but it’s gone now.”

Neill C. Furio, for his part, is an “architecturally cagey” songwriter (The Village Voice) and a "beautifully arch" electric bassist (Nick Cave). He loops on the fly and possesses X-ray hearing.

The FLUTTERBOX repertoire flitters between Neill’s beguiling songs and numbers we wish we had written. You can hear us do “Strange Fruit” every bit as correctly as “I Won’t Grow Up” from Peter Pan, followed by Neill’s actually unforgettable "Whoops Wrong Daisy" or preceded by one or more of his many car songs, perhaps "Safety Last" or "Rust in Peace."